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Brand Yourself as a Great Boss!!

Brought to you by Rainmaker Thinking, Inc.

Do you want to become a magnet for high performers?

Brand Yourself as a Great Boss!!
By Bruce Tulgan

Branding yourself as a great boss (like any branding effort) requires first that you figure out who you are targeting. Low performers? High performers? Mediocre performers?

Here’s what our research indicates:

Low performers are looking for a boss who…

• is weak, hands-off and tries to treat every employee the same;
• doesn’t keep track of who is doing what, where, why, when, and how;
• doesn’t spell out expectations;
• lets performance problems slide; and
• allows low performers to collect the same paycheck as everyone else.

High performers are looking for a boss who…

• is strong, highly engaged, and treats every employee as a special case;
• ets employees know they are important and their work is important by keeping track of who is doing what, where, why, when and how;
• spells out expectations clearly and shares best practices every step of the way;
• helps them avoid pitfalls and helps them solve problems quickly so they don’t grow;
• clears the low performers out of the way; and
• rewards high performers when they go the extra mile.

What about the vast majority of employees who are somewhere in the middle? You will get out of them exactly what you put in—in almost exact proportion to how much technique, time, and energy you put into managing them. If you are strong and highly engaged, you are treating your employees like high performers. You will manage most of them into a steady upward spiral.

HOW DO YOU BECOME A MAGNET FOR HIGH PERFORMERS?
In our research, we find two giant misconceptions about high performers in the workplace:

Myth #1: High performers don’t need to be managed.

Myth #2: High performers don’t want to be managed closely.

REALITY #1: HIGH PERFORMERS NEED MANAGERS TOO!
Never make the mistake of thinking that some employees are so talented, skilled, and motivated that you don’t need to manage them at all. Even superstars must be managed. Like everyone else, superstars have bad days, sometimes go in the wrong direction, and have lapses in judgment or integrity. Even superstars need guidance, direction, support, and encouragement. They need to be challenged and developed. What is more, superstars often want to know that someone is keeping track of their great work and looking for ways to reward them.

REALITY #2: HIGH PERFORMERS WANT TO BE MANAGED VERY WELL BY A GREAT BOSS
High performers want a boss who is strong and highly engaged, who knows exactly who they are and exactly what they are doing every step of the way. High performers want a boss who lets them know that they are important and that their work is important. They want a boss who practices the art of real empowerment---providing strong leadership through steady guidance, direction, and support. Today’s high performer is looking for a boss who will:

1. Spend time with her on a regular basis talking about her work.
2. Treat her as a special case.
3. Set her up for success every step of the way.
4. Help her grow and develop.
5. Help her earn the rewards she needs and wants.

SPEND TIME WITH YOUR HIGH PERFORMERS TALKING ABOUT THE WORK
Remember that the time you spend managing is “high-leverage time.” By managing, you engage the productive capacity of the people you manage. For every, say, fifteen-minute management conversation you have with an employee, you should be engaging hours or maybe days of that employee’s productive capacity. If that fifteen-minute conversation is effective, you should substantially improve the quality and output of the employee’s work for hours or days. That’s a good return on investment. That means the time you spend managing high performers is “super high leverage.”

Check in regularly to ensure that there are no obstacles in the employee’s way that will prevent her from getting lots of work done very well, very fast, all day long. You should ask yourself: Are there problems that haven’t been spotted yet? Problems that need to be solved? Resources that need to be obtained? Are there any instructions or goals that are not clear? Has anything happened since we last talked that I should know about? Answer employees’ questions as they come up. Get input from your employees throughout the process. Learn from what your employees are learning on the front line. Strategize together. Provide advice, support, motivation, and, yes, even inspiration once in a while.

TREAT EVERY HIGH PERFORMER LIKE A SPECIAL CASE
Every employee is a special case. If you don’t know what makes one of your employees a special case, you better find out. Figure out where this person is coming from: background, personality, style, communication, work habit, and motivations. The only way to learn what really works with each employee is to get in there and start managing. Those one-on-one conversations are the path inside. As you talk with each person face-to-face, try to tune in to that person and adjust your approach this way and that, just as you adjust the dial on a radio. Be aware of how you are changing your approach and observe carefully the effects of each change on each person and her performance. And remember, you’ll have to keep making adjustments constantly because people change and grow over time.

SET THEM UP FOR SUCCESS EVERY STEP OF THE WAY
By requiring employees to follow step-by-step checklists, you are telling each employee exactly what to do and how to do each task. I think often the best posture to assume is to think of yourself as a shrewd client and the employee as a professional you’ve hired. Be a very aggressive facilitator. Ask the high performer to think out loud about how she might approach an assignment but then skillfully lead the employee to the right conclusions as fast as possible. If an employee’s job is to be creative, the biggest favor you can do for that employee is to be clear about what is not within the employee’s discretion. If you want an employee to feel free to take risks and make mistakes, then you have to define parameters in order to create a space in which risk taking and mistakes are truly safe in the context of a job.

HELP THEM GROW AND DEVELOP
Here’s the key: Start small. As an employee demonstrates proficiency and performance, gradually increase the amount and importance of the work you assign. Next you can continue to empower him by using project planning tools together. Help him develop long-term project plans, complete with clear benchmarks along the way. Focus your one-on-one meetings on evaluating his progress toward each benchmark. Provide feedback and recommend adjustments every step of the way. Over time, he will be able to handle even bigger, more complex projects. The rigorous use of project planning tools is another well-kept secret ingredient of real empowerment. Over time, effective delegation creates real empowerment because it clearly defines the terrain on which the employee has power. All the while, you teach employees great habits by delegating effectively, demonstrating that self-management involves a constant accounting. They learn to constantly clarify priorities, expectations, plans, action steps, and timelines.

HELP THEM EARN WHAT THEY NEED AND WANT
You want to be generous and flexible with your employees, especially with your high performers. Start looking at the discretionary resources that are within your disposal already. Use your power over work conditions; scheduling; recognition; exposure to decision makers; deciding what tasks are assigned to whom, who gets extra training opportunities, where each employee works, and with what coworker; and so on. Do more for your high performers. Make special deals and small accommodations. But make sure they know that special rewards are not to be taken for granted and always remains contingent on his performance and your discretion. Make the quid pro quo explicit every step of the way.

ABOUT BRUCE TULGAN
Bruce Tulgan is the author most recently of IT’S OKAY TO BE THE BOSS (HarperCollins, 2007), excerpts from which appear in this article. Bruce is an adviser to business leaders all over the world and a sought after speaker and seminar leader. He is the founder of RainmakerThinking, Inc., a management training firm. Bruce is the author of numerous manager’s pocket guides and several books including the classic Managing Generation X as well as Winning the Talent Wars. He has written for dozens of publications including the New York Times, USA Today, the Harvard Business Review, and Human Resources and his work has been the subject of thousands of news stories. Bruce has addressed hundreds of thousands in his keynote speeches and trained tens of thousands of managers in his intensive seminars. He also holds a fourth degree black belt in Okinawan Uechi Ryu Karate Do. His wife Dr. Debby Applegate is a historian and the author of the highly acclaimed book THE MOST FAMOUS MAN IN AMERICA (Doubleday, 2006). They live in New Haven, Connecticut, and Portland, Oregon. Bruce can be reached at brucet@rainmakerthinking.com.